I completely disagree with the notion that gamers football knowledge should have any impact on implementation of football elements, in a football game. It's more of that illogical perspective that seems so prominent for Madden. There are actual NFL plays in Madden, those plays should be designed and implemented to play out as realistic as possible. That allows the general gamer to still utilize the plays on a basic level, inherently bakes in the option for more football knowledgeable gamers to utilize them in a more robust way and provides real world risk/reward context which potentially incentivies gamers to get better/more knowledgeable about football, not Maddenball/EA Football.
That concept should apply to every reasonable area of Madden, the only area where Madden should prioritize gamers football knowledge is varying User interface.
There was this NASCAR game I played a long time ago, maybe on Nintendo or PS 1, I'm not for sure but anyway the game had "drafting"
I had no idea what drafting was, I think a simple explanation for it was in the manual, anyway, I thought it was cool that they had it and maybe eventually I might could learn to use it somehow but it didn't hinder me as a novice NASCAR gamer from still having fun driving around the race track. In fact throughout my gaming experiences, I've played numerous games with real world concepts beyond my knowledge base at the time
(the NES game Spelunker immediately comes to mind, with no internet search engines at the time, my friends and I had no idea WTF that even meant, lol) but I enjoyed them anyway.
Also, if EA Tib would prioritize copying NFL football blueprint for everything applicable, that would be far more likely to help football laymans get better at Madden through accessing real world football material vs Madden guides, etc. It's not like Maddenball/EA Football is any less daunting for a gamer than real football design would be, I'd argue Maddenball is more so because it's way more niche', far less balanced and refined than real football.
So the notion that gamers need to be taught real football before or even while more real football is designed and implemented into Madden is not only illogical, it also is contradictory to how EA currently handles Maddenball/EA Football concepts.
EDIT: I don't believe in positive reinforcement for any game but I did want to provide in-game examples that currently and/or once exist in Madden of what I'm referring to and would like to see more of. The practice squads, catch tackles, players coming back as coordinators, position battles, GAP assignments and run fits, to name a few. Real football elements like these don't hinder the fun of Madden, they make it more immersive and comprehensive.